


Careless

by Lies_Unfurl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bottom Castiel, Castiel Whump, Coda, Episode: s12e10 Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets, Hurt Castiel, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Season/Series 12, Self-Sacrifice, Suicidal Thoughts, past female!Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 03:10:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9579803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lies_Unfurl/pseuds/Lies_Unfurl
Summary: Castiel has always obeyed Ishim.





	

“Cas? You okay?”

Castiel stares down at Ishim’s vessel. Death looks peaceful, sometimes. He thinks that maybe it should now, in what soft light leaks through the stained glass windows. Patterns of yellow and orange dance across the body. It reminds Castiel of hellfire.

Ishim doesn’t look peaceful. Restful. His lips parted slightly, as if after everything, he’s still surprised that Castiel could betray him. Could kill another angel for a human’s (for _Dean’s_ ) sake. 

Ishim looks like another casualty of a war Castiel started. The Enochian magic Lily uses – it would be powerless against true angels, angels who hadn’t fallen. He may only have stabbed Ishim, but Benjamin, Mirabel, and all the rest, their deaths are on him too.

“Cas?” Sam says again, starting to step forward and then halting, as if he knows better than to get too close.

That’s two garrisons he served with, now gone because of him.

*

_I liked your old vessel better_ Ishim says in the diner. 

It takes all of Castiel’s strength not to glance at Mirabel, to see if she knows. If she understood. _Careless_ , she’d called him.

He’d done the right thing back then. It doesn’t matter now. Jimmy earned his spot in Heaven long ago, and what flesh remains belongs to Castiel and Castiel alone. His to live in, his to die in, his to do with as he pleases. As he deserves.

*

It shouldn’t have taken so much out of him to heal Ishim. He’s drained. Several years and several lifetimes ago, during a fruitless quest to find his father (and memories of back then sting now in a way that no sword has ever pierced upon entering his being; be careful what you seek, lest you find it after all) –once, sitting in a church like this would have been enough to restore his energy, his grace.

He doesn’t feel anything now. A universe devoid of the Name shouldn’t be able to sustain itself, but here they are.

“You look tired,” Ishim murmurs. He crouches down next to Castiel. “Something tells me it’s not just that little shot of grace you just gave me.”

He’s so tired. Of hunting. Of failing. Of watching others die for his mistakes. It never ends.

“There are ways you can begin to make up for your actions, you know.”

_It always seems like it’s other angels sacrificing for your good deeds. ___

__Ishim’s breath hot on his neck. Castiel kneels._ _

__*_ _

__“We should get going,” Sam says quietly. Dean hasn’t said much, as if he knows. As if he can tell everything Castiel has kept hidden from him so carefully, and for so long._ _

__Of course he knows – if not everything, then enough. He’s smart enough to put the pieces together, the parallels Ishim was drawing between his affections for Lily and Castiel’s… weakness. Castiel could tell, had seen it in his eyes when he was weighing the wisdom of banishing Ishim. And he hadn’t _(because he wanted Ishim dead, not gone; because despite everything you retain enough grace to be useful to him)_ but Castiel wishes that he had. If he’d died, at least it would have felt like flying in his last moments. If he lived, he wouldn’t have to face the Winchesters right away._ _

__For a brief, selfish moment, Castiel wishes for more than that – wishes that Lily had finished what she had set out to do._ _

__Castiel turns away from Ishim’s body and limps towards the door. He hopes the brothers attribute his weakness to the wounds gained in the fight, or from the energy he spent (wasted) healing Ishim._ _

__*_ _

__The woman he’d inhabited back then – a distant relative of Jimmy Novak’s – she was good. Pious. Plans to enter the convent._ _

__Ishim’s actions. He hadn’t meant it. Castiel had longed convinced himself of that, enough that he could greet Ishim with a smile on his face when he saw him again for the first time since he’d left their flight._ _

__But Castiel still remembers. The others left after the nephil had been wiped out. Castiel had stayed behind with Ishim. He’d been second-in-command, back then. The others could return to their heavenly duties, but it fell upon the two of them to destroy the house, destroy the bodies, ensure that no signs of angelic interference remained._ _

__He remembers night falling as he scoured the earth of the imprints of Akobel’s wings._ _

__Akobel’s betrayal – it had _hurt_ Ishim. More than the others, Ishim’s duties revolve around watching the earth. Always, always, he was so impassive. And he had expected the same of the soldiers he led. For Akobel to reveal his weaknesses so suddenly and so dramatically had shocked them all, but none more so than the commander who had always been fair, who had always trusted his brethren. _ _

__That was why Ishim had acted the way he had. Ordered Castiel down. Taken from him – from his vessel – Ishim had wanted to _understand_. To know why Akobel fell, why he’d created the child. Why he’d done it. If others would follow._ _

__Outside on the dewy grass in the midst of an uncrowded wood. A house before them, soon to be smote from the Earth. Ishim above him, thrusting, while Castiel watched the stars. His vessel hadn’t wanted it. _He_ hadn’t really wanted it. But Ishim was his commander. And Ishim had to know._ _

__He’d freed the woman he was inhabiting from her flesh afterwards, before he’d rejoined the rest. Turned her body into ash, as he had done with Akobel’s vessel. The disgust and fear she’d felt at Ishim’s actions were too strong; her pain was too strong. He couldn’t leave her to deal with it alone._ _

__He told the others that he had chosen incorrectly. She hadn’t been powerful enough, and now she was at peace instead of dying slowly in a hospital on earth. Hadn’t felt guilt (he hadn’t felt much of anything back then). It hadn’t been a lie, not really._ _

__And Ishim had never questioned it in the short interval between that mission and when Castiel received his own command. Surely he would have said, if he’d thought Castiel responsible for concealing the truth._ _

___Careless_. It wasn’t true to the scenario Mirabel envisioned, but after everything else, Castiel didn’t bother denying it. Correcting her. He’d brought about the Fall. He was careless enough in other ways._ _

__*_ _

__He knows better this time. Knows when Ishim bends him over the couch with no preparation other than what saliva Castiel left on his dick that this isn’t about Ishim’s grief, or his need to understand. Isn’t about his pleasure. Not even about control, really._ _

__Castiel presses his forehead into the garish pink cushions. He’s glad he’s weak enough to feel pain. Ishim’s actions would be ineffective as punishment if he couldn’t._ _

__And oh, he’s grateful that it’s Ishim. Were it another angel, he would expect anger to drive the thrusts, a sheer, personal fury regarding Castiel, who he is, all that he’s done._ _

__He’s not stupid – he recognizes the disgust behind Ishim’s barbs. He doesn’t like Castiel, of course he doesn’t._ _

__But he’s Castiel’s commander. The angel Castiel spent eons obeying. Who led him, who guided him, and, yes, who would have punished him, had Castiel ever done anything out of line._ _

__With Ishim, he knows it’s just. Knows he deserves every second of burning, tearing pain, and the ache that will linger for days. Every bit of hurt penance for all the hurt he’s caused._ _

__Castiel makes to clean himself up after Ishim has spent himself, but Ishim stops him effortlessly, a strong hand on his wrist._ _

__“Leave it,” he orders._ _

__Castiel does – he’s more than willing to obey without an explanation. Ishim gives him one anyway._ _

__“I get the impression you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be dirty. I imagine that you’d have to, to feel as you do towards that… ape. It will do you good to remember.” He pulls up Castiel’s boxers, fingers lingering for a moment in the waistband. “You could be a warrior once again, Castiel. If you’d only leave him…”_ _

__Castiel shakes his head as he stumbles over to the pew and sits on the hard wood, not giving himself the luxury of plush couch cushions. He can take all the pain in the world. But the final punishment would be leaving Dean and Sam and he can’t do that. He isn’t strong enough to make himself suffer that way. He’d take death first, no matter how selfish that would be._ _

__*_ _

__He leaves the church with what little remains of Ishim still dripping down his thighs. Forces himself to call what little power he has to clean himself before he climbs into the Impala. Can’t spread his filth in there. Not when he’s already marring it with his very presence, with his past, with the way he drags Sam through the mud through associating with him, and the way he soils Dean through the things he wants. He’s dirty enough without the Winchesters knowing how stupid he was, that he twice thought he knew Ishim’s motives and twice let him have his way. It’s his own fault, really. After everything, he still can’t think things through._ _

__The pain stays, though. A punishment. A reminder._ _

__“I don’t regret what I did,” he says to Sam and Dean. “Even if it costs me my life.”_ _

__(He doesn’t say that he’d prefer it that way.)_ _


End file.
